Manipulating United Nations' WHO

"Health conditions in the occupied Palestinian territory, including east Jerusalem, and in the occupied Syrian Golan: Draft decision proposed by the delegation of Kuwait, on behalf of the Arab Group, and Palestine."
"[Requiring] a field assessment conducted by the World Health Organization [with particular focus on] incidents of delay or denial of ambulance service [and] access to adequate health services on the part of Palestinian prisoners."
WHO report A69/B//CONF./1 (May 24 2016)

United Nations, Geneva, Switzerland

No United Nations body has sought to intervene in the matter of Palestinians suffering under the Palestinian Authority in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, forced to live sub-par lives under the oppressive regimes that prefer to violently challenge Israel through indoctrinating young Palestinians to attack and kill Jews. Nor have they thought fit to examine the extra-judicial executions of Palestinians suspected of collaborating with Israel.

It seems that WHO is disinterested in sending a delegation to inspect the quality of care offered to Palestinians through hospitals in the West Bank and Gaza. To determine just why it is that top-ranked elite in the Palestinian Authority and Gaza, the very authorities who seek to destroy Israel, dispatch their loved ones to Israeli hospitals to be treated by Jewish doctors (and occasionally Arab doctors working at Israeli hospitals) for reliably professional and expert treatment.


Soldiers guard a suspected terrorist being treated at Hadassah. Photo by Emil Salman

Instead the World Health Organization has hired a consultant from the Syrian regime, that would be the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad who has exerted himself and his military ferociously over the last five years to slaughter a half-million Sunni Syrians and stimulate millions of Syrian citizens, roughly half of the 22-million population pre-civil war, to flee regime assaults against them. From the height of his moral universe that Syrian consultant will bring his expert opinion on the matter of Israel's failure to respond positively to the health needs of Palestinians.

The consultant will presumably be disinterested in interviewing the wife and brother-in-law of Mahmoud Abbas who have chosen to seek treatment in Israeli hospitals, bearing in mind the vast wealth that Mr. Abbas and his cronies have personally amassed through institutionalized corruption giving them the wherewithal to buy expert medical care anywhere in the world. Nor will they be likely to interview the sister, daughter and granddaughter of Ismail Haniyeh, Gaza's Hamas leader who has declared his intention through the Hamas charter to destroy Israel.

The field assessment as proposed is set to proceed on the basis of the votes that resulted in the general assembly. There were 107 votes in favour of proceeding, 8 against, 8 abstentions and 58 absences. Every state in Europe has chosen to vote in favour of proceeding with the assessment; in other words, the entirety of Europe feels that Israel has failed to provide timely and vital medical treatment for Palestinians. Or alternately doesn't much care, but feels an obligation to question Israel's moral judgement.

All of Europe includes countries like the Czech Republic, Denmark, Greece, Germany, Iceland, Italy, Netherlands, Poland, Portugal, Norway, Spain, Sweden, France, Switzerland and the United Kingdom, among many others. All of whom stand foursquare in criticism of Israel, the tiny nation surrounded by hostile and often violent neighbours and whose economy is weighted with the cost of defending itself, taking funding away from other vital civil services.

Oddly, many Muslim-majority countries, for reasons of their own, chose to absent themselves from the vote. So while Libya happened to miss the vote, Germany voted for the intrusion in questioning Israel's service to Palestinians. There may be some wise man who feels he, or some extraordinarily clever woman who can make sense of right-wing-prone Muslim nations absenting themselves from a vote of this nature, while Europe, which is decidedly on the left of the political spectrum is universally prepared to hold Israel in such contempt.

Palestinian siblings Hadeel Hamdan, top, and Ahmed rest in their room, at the Rambam Health Care Campus in Haifa, Israel, May 13, 2015 (AP/Ariel Schalit)

"The WHO is supposed to be a professional organization, and I am very disappointed that the Palestinian delegate chose to use this forum to attack Israel."

"Israel provides health insurance for all residents. We guarantee a health insurance plan that is comprehensive and equitable. These services, which are embedded in the law, promise a high standard of care for all."

Israel’s Health Minister Yaakov Litzman